Tuesday, 16 June 2015

Blogging: Things I Suck At

Over the years I've realised there are quite a few (read: a lot) of blogging things I suck at. But it's time to stop being embarrassed of them, so here, for your amusement, is the list in progress...

Genres

When it comes to judging what genre/s a book belongs to, I struggle. Is this book classed as Sci-fi or Dystopian? And I still haven't got my head around Coming-of-age and Post Apocalyptic. Embarrassingly, I suck at music genres too, although when someone classes One Direction or 5SOS as punk, rock, or both I'm quick to correct them. Because no. Just no. Luckily, books-wise, Goodreads has a section where you can see what genres people have classed certain books as, so nowadays I just tend to follow the crowd.

Commenting

I'm so bad at commenting on other people's blogs. There are a couple of blogs where I read their latest posts and automatically scroll to the comment section to leave my thoughts, but I guess there are some blogs where I'm just not in the habit of commenting there. That probably doesn't make any sense. I need to get back into the habit of commenting more because I know how much joy I feel when I have comments awaiting moderation myself, but sometimes I really don't have anything to say. Argh!

Post titles

You'd think, after nine years of coming up with post titles almost daily, I would be a pro by now. But no. It's still just as difficult coming up with decent post titles as it was when I was writing my first ever blog post. While I'm on the subject, do any of you have any tips on thinking up a good blog post title? I seriously need help.

Replying to emails

Sometimes, when reading a review request from a publisher, I'll read it and think, "Mm, nah, not my kinda thing." And then I forget to reply. A few days later: "Hi Amber, I'm just following up last week's email to see if you would like to review this book?" Why, why, why am I so forgetful when it comes to emails? Everything else, I remember just fine. Emails? ...Sorry, what emails?

18 year old book blogger who aspires to work in journalism and/or publishing, and dreams of one day seeing her own work on bookshelves around the world. Amber has been running The Mile Long Bookshelf single-handedly since 2009.

17 comments:

Hi Amber, this is a great post. I'm the exact same way - I wake way too long to reply to emails and sometimes I have trouble remembering to leave a comment on a blog post I like. Perfect example, I've been reading your blog for months, but this is my first time leaving a comment. :P

When it comes to things I suck at, well I don't post as often as I should. Sometimes I procrastinate on writing a new post and then it ends up being a week or even a month before I get to it.

Shoot, you are 120% correct about post titles. Sometimes it's like nothing sounds right. I, too, suck at commenting on other blogs, as well as writing reviews in a timely manner. I am currently about 4-5 book reviews behind -_- I SUCK!Rosie @ Rosie Reads

Yes to all of these - except genre. I think I got the genre thing down. Also post scheduling. I tend to write a bunch of posts when I'm on a writing high, like, we're talking two-digit numbers. Then I won't write for another month or so and get super excited about the posts in my queue. So my blog is either 3829382 posts a month or, like, five. I really need to find a balance :D

There are SOOOO many parts of blogging that I suck at. I'm rubbish at social media - I've just about got the hang of Instagram, but Twitter TERRIFIES me. And commenting - it's hard for me to respond to comments on my own blog sometimes, let alone comment on everyone else's! So yeah, I feel your pain, Amber!Beth xwww.thequietpeople.com

I can relate to a lot of your list. It doesn't help when new genres are made like 'New Adult' either, it's hard to keep track. I just focus on themes and ignore genre. I try to comment more but a lot of the time I see posts, especially TTT, and I haven't heard of a single book and I don't really have anything to say. You've just reminded me I have emails to reply to as well. Love your post!

Oh my god emails - I'm shocking. I sat yesterday and went through them for over an hour and had missed loads of stuff and forgotten to reply to others! I'm disastrous with NetGalley too, I forget about granted requests and then go to clear out my kindle and find things I should have reviewed weeks ago, I need to stop!! With regard to post titles I think just stick to the straightforward description one! I like a good pun now and again (who doesn't?!) but if I'm stuck I just go to old faithful "review of blah". I haven't a clue about genres and sub-genres, I know adult from young adult and I'm pretty sure I can identify dystopian but after that - not a breeze. x

totally with you on emails im either so on the ball, like now im sat with a planner and emails open sorting the month, but then sometimes i wont check them properly for days then spend my days off sorting the mess haha xx

I suck at the genre thing so so badly too!! Like those contemporary-ish books that have a smidge of sci-fi?! They always get me. Grr. ;-) And emails are my life's bane. I'm just so used to shooting back a character tweet that I get an email and blink and go, "But I need to use lots of words and what are words and I'll do it later." XD

There is a SciFi/Dystopian chart with all of the sub-genres floating around. I will try to find it and post it on Twitter and tag you. So far I have only done features and reviews so I have not had to think up post titles yet. I belong to Bloggers Commenting Back, so if the commenter has a blog and it wasn't a two word comment, or an obvious generic copy and past, I make sure to go comment on something on their blog. The only email about review books I get are self-pub spam, so I don't bother replying. I think the one thing I suck at according to many other bloggers is not following a formal format for my reviews, but it is on purpose, so the jokes on them. :)

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